Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone? • Hacker News Board

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#191

Post by spiritplumber » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

"The Last Of The Deliverers"

Poul Anderson, "The Last of the Deliverers" IN Door To Anywhere, pp. 408-417.

I read this story once before in an anthology a long time ago. An author's note explained that the story shows one of our present conflicts as history because it will become history.

A future history is summarized:

"'Technology made it possible for a few people and acres to feed the whole country, till millions of acres were lying idle; you could buy them for peanuts.'" (p. 415)

A few people, yes, but a few acres?

"'Meanwhile the cities were overtaxed, underrepresented, and choked by their own traffic. Along came the cheap sunpower unit and the high-capacity accumulator. Those let a man supply most of his own wants, not work his heart out for someone else to pay the inflated prices demanded by an economy where every single business was subsidized or protected at the taxpayer's expense.'" (ibid.)

Living better on less work, people needed to earn so little that they paid nearly zero taxes, consumed little, thus causing a depression, and preferred to live in small country communities, despite rearguard action from both big business and trade unions. Individuals and families use town tractors as and when they need to and most grow garden vegetables. Land cannot be owned because it cannot be pocketed and carried around.

"'And when we do work, we'd rather work for ourselves, not for somebody else, whether you call the somebody else a capitalist or the people. Now let's go sit down and take it easy before lunch.'" (p. 414)

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#192

Post by notpachet » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

127 wrote: post #156

calltrak wrote: post #7

I am an unemployed programmer. I am 50 years old. I have 15 years of C#, 15 years of sql server, two years of golang, two years of node.js, vue.js, svelte, css, html, postgress, rabbitmq, etc etc etc.... My skills list is about 10 times this short list I just threw up. They tell me there is a skills and labor shortage in tech. That's complete bullshit I am UNEMPLOYED for a year. I don't believe one dam word the gover…

As a (potential) employer, I wouldn't really care about age. It's all about how much you make money for me. What your performance to cost ratio? People can be cats or dogs for all I care. Young have the advantage that they usually drastically undervalue themselves and thus provide an unbeatable proposition. They're usually more energetic, positive and optimistic, which is more pleasant to be around and thus makes the…

> Young have the advantage that they usually drastically undervalue themselves and thus provide an unbeatable proposition. They're usually more energetic, positive and optimistic, which is more pleasant to be around and thus makes the work environment more productive.

This feels myopic. It cuts both ways. Young employees are often much more susceptible to conflating their personal identity with their work identity, which can lead to serious emotional and psychological issues down the road. Even if we're looking at it purely from an extract-value-from-employee angle, I don't want a team that's running purely on misplaced idealism and ramen cups, because that's not sustainable.

So the counterpoint to your comment would be: older employees have the advantage of serving as an example to younger ones for how to better manage work/life balance, which yields a healthier team in aggregate.

Only a Sith hires in absolutes.

[edit: grammatical typo]

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#193

Post by bjornsing » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:28 PM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #176

thechao wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If labor is a market, laborers are at a fundamental disadvantage compared to employers when it comes to clearance: the employer has an asymmetric advantage in its ability to wait to hire someone; laborers are a lot less capable. I don’t know that unemployment is a good solution, but I think it speaks volumes that people might be using it to balance the standard inequity.

Employers need employees, and employees need employers. If you have orders to fill, and noone to do the work, you're just as fscked, as if you have bills to pay, and no money to do it. Employers get an added benefit of being able to wait it out a bit, since they generally have more money than workers, and workers have unemployment benefits, which means that they can wait it out (until the benefits stop). The problems…

> Employers need employees, and employees need employers. If you have orders to fill, and noone to do the work, you're just as fscked, as if you have bills to pay, and no money to do it.

Na, not really. An employer can just raise their prices until incoming orders and delivery capacity align. That’s a sustainable situation for the employer. There may be some opportunity cost, but they’re doing okay.

An employee on the dole on the other hand is not in a sustainable situation. They have to find a job before they run out of benefits and savings, or the consequences will be dire…

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#194

Post by refurb » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

stripline wrote: post #171

info781 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you offer an American a choice between more money or more vacation, they will take the money, for the most part.

That's because American's can't afford vacations without more money.

Money is typically not the issue with most US jobs compared to Europe.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#195

Post by pessimizer » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:30 PM UTC

fundad wrote: post #158

minikites wrote: post #121

>Add Brexit into the equation, and the old assumption that companies can just hire extra people from Eastern Europe to fill any gaps can no longer be taken for granted. Wild idea, but maybe companies should pay higher salaries. I bet they would find plenty of workers. If their business relies on paying people sub-standard wages, maybe their business deserves to fail to make room for someone else who is better at maki…

Wasn't this one of the stated motivations for Brexit? Fewer immigrants pressuring owners to raise wages for British citizens. It was the same here in the States with border wall construction, turning away asylum seekers instead of letting them work while their cases were processed, issuing fewer visas and detaining and deporting more people. Strange to see who is carrying water for owners instead of taking credit for…

In the States, net immigration was negative before the border wall was proposed. It was an intentional distraction. It was also an intentional distraction when H. Clinton was lefty-punching over it at the same time the administration was doing NAFTA. No recent administration has earnestly cared about working-class wages. The reason working-class incomes have been rising recently is entirely due to public pressure and the need to pump cash into an economy that was on the verge of returning to a serious recession at a time when the two parties are absolutely even electorally.

But since the administration is trying to avoid a big recession followed by endless recovery (i.e. learn from the mistakes of Obama), they're only interested in interventions that pour money into businesses. They're not interested in structural change; they're just taking advantage how absurdly slowly the USD inflates no matter how much of it you print.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#196

Post by PragmaticPulp » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

heurisko wrote: post #159

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of this stuff about workers disappearing and people reconsidering their lives is pretty much a sideshow of projected narrative that is detached from what is really going on. Well said. We’ve been bombarded with news articles and thought pieces about how COVID has forever changed the workforce, how people are refusing to work jobs they don’t like, how people are quitting en masse because their employers won’t al…

One of the stories I often hear, is that people have decided to move house to the countryside, as they are now able to work remotely. I don't know how true this is: are these people not concerned if their employer decides to reopen offices and require employees to work in the office again when the pandemic inevitably ends?

> One of the stories I often hear, is that people have decided to move house to the countryside, as they are now able to work remotely.

This is the primary trick that journalists use in these stories: They find a couple examples of people doing something, interview them, and then pretend those people are a sample of a much larger movement. They don’t cite statistics or numbers, however easy to find, because putting a number on these movements would make the reader realize they’re nowhere near as large as the author wants you to think.

Using the “people moved to the countryside” example: Did we have a surplus of empty houses in the countryside before the pandemic? As far as I’m aware, we did not have huge numbers of empty houses just waiting for a pandemic for people to fill them up (except maybe Detroit, but I’m pretty sure people didn’t flock to Detroit).

Also, home prices and rents in cities didn’t fall dramatically during this period, which would be expected during an exodus event.

Even the stories about San Francisco population declines have been overblown, with many of the people leaving being quickly replaced by people looking for an opportunity to move in.

Journalists played up the countryside exodus stories because they’re romantic and people like to believe fantasies about people leaving the concrete jungle behind and living idyllic countryside lives, separated from their employers by miles of broadband connectivity. Yet none of the numbers support such supposed exoduses. Obviously a few people did it here and there, but pretending it was a common event and writing dramatic articles is dishonest.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#197

Post by ryanSrich » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

At least where I live (PNW USA) there’s a growing concern from businesses that another lockdown is coming. They just started requiring masks again this week. If I’m an employee of one of those businesses, or was previously, I’m staying home. Why would I go back when it seems that yet another lockdown is imminent, and I’ll be laid off again. Many of these workers have had wold cried to them for a year and half. The whiplash of non masks, now wear a mask, lockdown, now no lockdown, to lockdown again is more than people can handle.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#198

Post by bloopernova » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:32 PM UTC

temphnaccount wrote: post #110

lucb1e wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't believe one dam word the government or the media says anymore. Not one word. Not about the cough. If you really mean this, if you really think the pandemic is all a big conspiracy created by your government... makes me genuinely curious how you come across in interviews. I don't think you're wrong about the labor shortage thing. Similar story here: quite a bit of trouble finding a job as a 25 year old tech…

I am curious as to how did you jump from not believing the government to pandemic being a conspiracy? Pandemic is real and governments have lied to their people, more so in last one and a half year - both of these statements can be true. Also you should not question someone's capability to come across in the interviews based on their venting on online anonymous platform. Humans can have vastly different emotions depe…

Over the past 18 months or so, since the COVID-19 pandemic has been foremost in our minds, a group of people have espoused certain opinions or viewpoints. Namely:

    The pandemic is a hoax
    It doesn't kill people
    Those that did die, died from other causes
    That they won't wear a mask
    That they won't get a vaccine
    That the vaccine modifies DNA

The person who referred to the COVID-19 pandemic as "the cough" may or may not hold any or all of those views. But 18 months of hearing that group of people espouse those views leads many of us to learn that if they support one of the views above, they support them all.

Again, that may or may not be correct or ethical. It's just our experience.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#199

Post by DethNinja » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:32 PM UTC

bserge wrote: post #3

I literally can't find a job in any kind of engineering. Applied for dozens of cleaning and production positions and couldn't get a job. You know what the media has become? A cesspool of bullshit unworthy of any trust. No wonder so many people mistrust actual experts, it's hard to even tell who they are.

Mechanical Engineering is a very saturated field and it is very hard to open your own company. If you want to become self employed in that field then you need good connections more than talent. I would recommend switching to software engineering. Not that software engineering is much better but at least self employment will be a bit easier.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#200

Post by bobthepanda » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:38 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #189

heurisko wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the stories I often hear, is that people have decided to move house to the countryside, as they are now able to work remotely. I don't know how true this is: are these people not concerned if their employer decides to reopen offices and require employees to work in the office again when the pandemic inevitably ends?

I imagine a lit of these people have gotten permission and made arrangements with their employers in advance.

That being said, this is not necessarily easy even for large employers, because until now there wasn't a need to clarify if workers were subject to the income, payroll etc. taxes and employee protection, health insurance contracts of their working or resident state. It is totally possible to be a large Fortune 500 company in the US and not be set up to do paperwork in, I don't know, Alaska or Wyoming or Idaho.